Pastels and Watercolors (and a few other art media)

SquarePeg · Mar 17, 2022

terri said:
Nice work! I love those blues in the bottom one. So you're going to re-do this without the leaves?

Going to redo it with some changes. 1- try harder with the leaves. I added these as an after thought and it’s obvious. 2- better paper. I did this on the cheap stuff and it was not flowing the way I wanted. 3- redo the sketch with more realistic flowers. I always struggle with loose vs realistic and end up with something in between which looks amateurish - Which I am at this but it’s annoying.

SquarePeg · Mar 18, 2022

Latest effort. Even remembered to take a WIP like terri does.

Background and salt added. This took hours to dry because I went really heavy on the paint in the spots where I wanted to seed heads to pop. I should have let the paint dry a bit more before adding the salt.

terri · Mar 18, 2022

Love the salt effect, as always! I like your swirly background, and deep blues.

I really like how it looked at the WIP stage, too - the seed pods were very contrasty. Glad you remembered to take the WIP pics, because they are useful at a later date, when trying a similar style.

(I get annoyed when I've gone too far past a place where a WIP photo would be of any use, I have studied them a lot. Not that it always gets me anywhere. :lol:

)

SquarePeg · Mar 22, 2022

Lately I’ve been obsessed with watching Paul Clark watercolor tutorials. I love his teaching style and of course we all know I’m obsessed with everything British these days. Just finished watching The Stranger on Netflix and started Marcella.

Field of poppies. I used cheap paper and it shows in person but this one photographed well lol.

Tree practice. One for each season.

terri · Mar 23, 2022

Love your poppies!!! Tree studies look good, too.

Ha, no worries about using cheap paper! Whenever I try something new it's just in my sketchbook.

SquarePeg · Mar 31, 2022

Painted some more poppies. Working on my light and shadow. No tutorial this time but combined a few of the techniques from the previous ones.

terri · Apr 1, 2022

You're doing great with these poppies! This turned out beautifully. You're obviously learning from your prior tutorials to be able to combine techniques like this. Nice work!

terri · May 30, 2022

Hey!! I tried watercolor again! And it's pretty bad, as usual. :lol:

Aside from my boxed sets of oil pastels and some random items, virtually ALL of my art supplies are in storage. I've been doing some random sketches with graphite but really missing some color. I finally splurged a bit on some small sets of various pencils, and one was a 12-piece set of Faber-Castell WC pencils.

I realized too late that I should have also bought some cheap artist brushes to apply the water. Clearly I don't know what I'm doing with this medium. I did find 2 small brushes that got me through a short tutorial on using WC pencils.

This is just on my sketchpad (Canson XL Mix Media) so the paper didn't buckle too badly. My lack of control over this medium is very obvious here, but at least I found time to play.

No purple in this little set so it was fun to layer red and blue in certain areas.

At the top of the page, above those flowers, are just my little notes and color blocks on the other 2 sets I bought. I can't believe I separated myself from my Prismacolors and other pencils, but I surely did. I bought regular colored pencils, Blick brand, and splurged on a set of Derwent Chromaflow. They act closer to Prismacolor, so they must have a higher wax content - they are gorgeous.

SquarePeg · May 30, 2022

terri said:
Hey!! I tried watercolor again! And it's pretty bad, as usual.

Aside from my boxed sets of oil pastels and some random items, virtually ALL of my art supplies are in storage. I've been doing some random sketches with graphite but really missing some color. I finally splurged a bit on some small sets of various pencils, and one was a 12-piece set of Faber-Castell WC pencils.

I realized too late that I should have also bought some cheap artist brushes to apply the water. Clearly I don't know what I'm doing with this medium. I did find 2 small brushes that got me through a short tutorial on using WC pencils.

This is just on my sketchpad (Canson XL Mix Media) so the paper didn't buckle too badly. My lack of control over this medium is very obvious here, but at least I found time to play. No purple in this little set so it was fun to layer red and blue in certain areas.

View attachment 256652

At the top of the page, above those flowers, are just my little notes and color blocks on the other 2 sets I bought. I can't believe I separated myself from my Prismacolors and other pencils, but I surely did. I bought regular colored pencils, Blick brand, and splurged on a set of Derwent Chromaflow. They act closer to Prismacolor, so they must have a higher wax content - they are gorgeous.

I like what you’ve done with this. The colors are great. I think wc pencils are harder to use than the pans or tubes. I like the YouTube channels for Mind of Watercolor for tutorials about controlling color and water snd Paul Clark for loose watercolor techniques.

Sophia has a set of the Prismacolor pencils that she got as a grad gift from her art teacher in high school. I’m not allowed to touch them

.

I’m hoping to get some painting time in tonight! I’ve been saying that for weeks but end up doing other more pressing things instead.

vintagesnaps · May 30, 2022

Nice gift from her teacher!

I found the watercolor pencils have a bit of a learning curve! Used them for a class or two actually related to needlework.

Those poppies are nice!

Some tutorials are OK and some not so much; I've always taken a lot of art classes and seen many that aren't consistent with the body of knowledge in the field of art.

I'm going to do an online studio session weekly (although you can drop in and don't have to do every week) and it's a reasonable cost. Did a class with the instructor thru the Royal School of Needlework (RSN) and the instructor was good. She's in demand and known and damn well gets paid for her work!! lol Sorry but a pet peeve, although tutorials I suppose get compensated by drawing people in and selling stuff. Sharon what you're doing is getting better than some of the tutorials, seriously!

snowbear · May 30, 2022

I agree, it looks pretty good. As an exercise try one scene in both wet on dry as well as wet on wet; get a feel for both techniques.

vintagesnaps · May 30, 2022

That's a good idea.

Maybe there are some good tutorials, I've just seen too many that are leading people down the proverbial primrose path. I guess it's from having been a teacher, but when people are good at something I'd like to see them find what can enable them to learn and develop a good basis for their skills.

terri · May 31, 2022

snowbear said:
I agree, it looks pretty good. As an exercise try one scene in both wet on dry as well as wet on wet; get a feel for both techniques.

That's a good idea. This particular brand states on the box that they shouldn't be dipped directly into water but I agree, putting them down on paper that's been sprayed or sponged should work. I liked how bright they turned with the application of water. And when it dried you could go back in with the pencil for detail work.

I'm just really awkward with brushes. If I ever took a painting class it would be for a basic intro into brushwork and handling, any medium would be okay. With oil pastels, I only use a brush to apply Turpenoid over layers to blend, nothing more than broad strokes.

Thanks for the encouraging words, everyone! We should post here more, if life could slow down a bit. :lol:

snowbear · May 31, 2022

For the WC pencils, I just lay down color (not too much) as if I were using regular color pencils, then do a wash with clean water over that. Depending on the picture, I may do this several times, working from light to dark.

Mixing is tricky, and I haven't gotten it down, but I try to "color" both pencils (say a green and a blue), usually in a cross-hatch pattern, then water wash.

I'll put a few minutes together this evening (not going up to the house) and do a quick scene with WIP photos.

snowbear · May 31, 2022

OK, @terri: I misunderstood what you tried. Thinking you were using paints, I suggested the wet-on-wet. Not something I'd try with the WC pencils.

This may or may not be helpfull but:
1. Sketch with regular pencil. There's no reason you couldn't use a WC pencil for this step.

2. Lay down color from the pencils. I am using the bread side of the "lead" for the blocks of color and occasionally the point for fine lines. I am also layering dark on light (shadows on the left side).

3. Start the waster wash on the lighter colors (yellow). Again, broad side of the brush. This brush is a cheap round. It's supposed to be a #6 but it's out of shape and larger than when it started life.

4. Finish the washes into the darks. On the smaller areas, I just dab the brush over the area with minimal brushing movement. On the larger areas, I sort of "push" the water into areas, especually when mixing color. I keep it a little loose.